Parklands

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A distinctive feature of Adelaide is the extensive belt of 800ha of grassland and tree plantings that surround the city and North Adelaide and greatly enhance the inner city’s amenity. They were laid out in Colonel William Light’s 1837 survey and have been preserved remarkably intact. The idea of urban parks exists in town planning since classical times, and some elements of Light's plan such as the five squares are based directly on historical models such as the 1682 plan of Philadelphia. However, there appear to be no precedents for the perimeter parkland.

In 1864, Surveyor-General George Goyder drew up a standard plan for country towns with a similar parkland perimeter, and his surveyors dotted the wheat belt with miniature Adelaides. Maitland on the Yorke Peninsula is a particularly fine example.

There has been conflict between recreational and institutional use of the Adelaide parklands since the mid nineteenth century. Light never clearly spelled out their intended function, but seems to have envisaged a division between government and community uses. In March 1837 he marked out nine areas of the parklands for government purposes, reserving the rest for the ‘use and recreation of the citizens’. Given his military background, his use of the word ‘park’ may have implied a place for grazing animals and parking wagons and guns, rather than a place of public amenity. (This meaning is retained in our modern word carpark.) By 1840 West Terrace Cemetery was in use, Government House, the military barracks and Adelaide Gaol were under construction, and much of the land was used for grazing government horses. The parklands remained crown land until 16 April 1839, when purchased by Governor George Gawler to forestall private landholders. The purchase was never completed, and while most of the land has been under the care and management of the Adelaide Corporation since 1849, its tenure was long in question. It was only in the early 1850s that the recreational values of the parklands were widely recognised, and some areas were fenced and gardeners appointed to maintain them.

An early controversy over development arose in 1855 when a grandstand was built at the racecourse, now Victoria Park. The issue was not the activity of horseracing, but the erection of a permanent structure. Large areas of the parklands have since been utilised for public facilities: roads, bridges, Parliament House, a hospital, a lunatic asylum, a morgue, an astronomical observatory, a botanic garden, a zoo, military and police barracks, showgrounds, a cricket oval, the Exhibition Building, a school, two universities, an art gallery, a museum, a library, swimming baths, boat sheds, railway stations, entertainment centres, and water and sewerage depots. These were concentrated along North Terrace, other areas remaining undeveloped; the Duryea photographs of 1865 show sheep grazing in grassland almost entirely bare of trees. Extensive areas were used to dump rubbish until the early twentieth century, and animals were grazed until the 1950s. However the question of development was perennially controversial, and the Park Lands Preservation League was established in 1903 to oppose further alienation of parkland.

In the 1980s the Adelaide Station Environs Redevelopment project brought unprecedented land uses; the Adelaide Casino, Hyatt Hotel and Convention Centre were granted long-term leases, the first major and overt commercial activities tolerated in the parklands. A new Adelaide Parklands Preservation Association was formed in 1987 to oppose further intrusion. In recent decades the Grand Prix and Clipsal 500 car races have again led to controversy over permanent infrastructure in the East Parklands. In 2005 parliament passed the Adelaide Park Lands Act which recognises and limits commercial uses for the land. It is administered by the Adelaide Park Lands Authority with joint state and city representation, but land uses in the parklands remain controversial.

By Peter Bell

This is a revised version of an entry first published in The Wakefield companion to South Australian history edited by Wilfrid Prest, Kerrie Round and Carol Fort (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2001). Revised by the author. Uploaded 25 June 2014.

I thank your correspondent for the information which has been detailed in the submission, although there are several 'facts' with which I cannot agree. However, I will not enter to a lengthy exposition on the subject.
There is just one point which I would like to clarify, and that is the claim that the outer boundary of the Park Lands was under Corporation management prior to 1852. Now, the facts are that with the failure of the first Councils, the Park Lands came under Government control, and the outer boundary was therefore not an issue. It was not until Young finally installed a new Corporation in 1852 - long after the enabling 1849 Act, that the Corporation were officially given the management of the entire Park Lands.

Thank you for clarifying Kelly. Peter Bell has declined the option of making further changes to his article. We are happy to accept multiple contributions on similar topics. Peter's sources can be viewed in the 'Learn more' section at the top right of the page.

If the respondent would like to send me a List of the documents relied upon for the 'first 50 years of the Park Lands', or even the first ten, I may be able to assist.
The comments in response to my posting seem to indicate there are some serious gaps in the material relied upon and the chronology without which it will not be possible to avoid being misled by the myriad of errors and mistakes that have obscured South Australia's honest history.
To clarify, I've not provided 'an interpretation of events' - my comments simply report primary source material including original maps created by William Light which I have personally examined in the National Archives of the UK, and Rowland Hill's original correspondence (the manuscripts also in the UK) and a plethora of other primary source documents which I have also examined.
I did not, and would not, claim "Fisher was responsible" for the purchase 'fee simple' of the Adelaide Park Lands. Of course Fisher was not Resident Commissioner at that time. However there were _no Crown lands_ at that time either, nor could there be.
Yes, Fisher was removed, but not at the time I referred to, in 1837, when Light first set apart the figure-eight of his "Adelaide Park".
When Light wrote in circa Feb, 1837, "The dark green round the town I propose to the Resdt. Commr. [Resident Commissioner] be reserved as Park grounds" Light is referring to James Hurtle Fisher.
In fact, the Park Lands purchase _was completed_ and the Adelaide Park Lands were purchased in Fee Simple Absolute, under the Commissioners and before South Australia became a Crown colony.
A 'Deed' is not required to 'validate' the purchase. It is not a question of whether or not there is a 'Deed', and the authority for this is Sir Richard Davies Hanson, _not_ Young.
The Adelaide City Council tasked Worsnop with finding proof that the Park Lands were owned by the City Council - a materially different question as it turns out. The got the answer to the question they asked, but not to the question they should have, but hadn't, asked.
The historical records are unequivocal - the boundary of the Municipal Corporation of the City of Adelaide was not limited to the inner boundary of the Park Lands until 1852, on the contrary, the municipal boundary did extend over the Adelaide Park Lands before 1852.
The 1849 Act is not an authority for what happened years _before_ it was passed - it is the wrong document to consult for the purpose.
I make these submissions based upon the research that I have carried out on all of the authoritative relevant available primary source documents.

Much of what K. Henderson states are, I expect, an interpretation of events as perceived by the writer.
The comment that Fisher was responsible for the purchase 'in fee simple' has no basis as, although Fisher had been advised by Rowland Hill, Secretary to the Colonization Commissioners, to effect the purchase, he had been replaced by Gawler before he could carry out those instructions.
Hill addressed a letter to Gawler on 7 August 1839, complaining that the purchase had not been implemented. However, because of the length of time which it took to send and receive information from England, Gawler had already done so and he so advised Hill in a letter dated 26 September 1839. In fact it was no purchase at all. There were never any Deeds drawn up to validate the 'purchase' and Governor Young decided that the whole thing was a fiction, and erased it. The whole matter came under intense scrutiny by Town Clerk Worsnop, instructed by the Corporation, on two occasions, 1879 and 1884, to discover whether any such Grant or Title of any type had been registered.
The first Council was not the custodian of the Park Lands as their management was limited to the inner boundary of those lands, and it was not until the 1852 Council was installed under the 1849 Act that they became the managers after their responsibility was extended to the outer edge of the Park Lands.
I make these submissions based upon the research I have carried out on the history of Fisher's residency, and an account of the first 50 years of the Park Lands which I am at present compiling.

Following up further Kelly,
The initial Adelaidia working group adopted a style guide which stated park lands would be used except in instances where the phrase is intended as a proper noun, when Parklands is used. I'll need to do some more digging through the documentation to establish why that was so as I wasn't involved at that point. I'll note your suggestion for if we're able to overhaul the style guide at any point, for the moment we're aiming for consistency.

Also I've had some clarification from Peter on the military reference, he was referring to the Oxford English Dictionary definition of park as it is specified for military use. Since he's simply making connections between possible uses and Light's background, not stating that is Light's documented purpose, I think we can let that stand. For the rest I'll need to spend more time looking into it, but I think Peter's article is still a very good introduction for the topic. He's cited his sources under the 'learn more' above.

For example
Multiple Errors: "The parklands (sic) remained crown land (sic) until 16 April 1839 (sic), when purchased by Governor George Gawler to forestall private landholders (sic). The purchase was never completed (sic), and while most of the land has been under the care and management of the Adelaide Corporation (sic) since 1849 (sic), its tenure was long in question."

Fact: By force of the Act of the British Parliament establishing South Australia, and powers thereby granted to, and exercised by, the Colonization Commissioners for South Australia there was no "crown land" in South Australia.
Fact: All the lands of South Australia, including the islands adjacent the coast, and land subsequently laid out as the Adelaide Park, were declared "Public Lands" (which remained the case until years after the purchase of the Adelaide Park was completed).
Fact: The Adelaide Park, a figure-eight of Park Lands, was set apart and reserved and dedicated as public walks in perpetuity by Surveyor-General William Light in 1837, with the approval and agreement of the Resident Commissioner James Hurtle Fisher and acceptance of holders of Preliminary Land Purchase Orders (or their agents in South Australia).
Fact: The land of the Adelaide Park (Adelaide Park Lands) was subsequently purchased in fee simple absolute by the Resident Commissioner in accordance with directives issued by the Colonization Commissioners for South Australia (London).
Fact: The purchase of the Adelaide Park Lands, in fee simple absolute, was completed.
Fact: The Corporation of the City of Adelaide (Adelaide City Council) was established as the first municipal council in Australia (1839/1840) and was also contemporaneously made the custodian of the Adelaide Park Lands, with the exception of several special-public-purpose reserves (e.g. Government House Reserve) and with the exception of an interregnum during which the City was managed by a City Commissioner, etc.

<Parklands> on this page and others is incorrect. When referring to The City of Adelaide, it should be Adelaide Park Lands.

Light's Plan is not a "belt" of Park Lands, but rather a figure-eight, similar to the mathematical symbol representing infinity.

Light's Plan has six squares, not five. He planned the City of Adelaide, 1,000 saleable Town Acres, in two halves laid north and south of the River Torrens (North Adelaide, and South Adelaide now known as 'Adelaide' or the CBD).

There are precedents for perimeter open space city lands, but no known precedent for the figure-eight of Park Lands Light designed and implemented for the City of Adelaide. Light's "Adelaide Park" and the subsequent references to the lands of the Adelaide Park, "Park Lands", gave rise to the term "parklands".

The function of Adelaide's Park Lands was always explicitly clear. The land was set apart as public walks in perpetuity (that is, passive recreation) for the health and recreation of the inhabitants of the City of Adelaide. Obviously, the occupants of land outside of the City of Adelaide had no need of such open space as they held 134-acre country sections for agricultural purposes, and it was incumbent on other local government and district councils, and the state government, to make provision for such when they established new council areas and allowed subdivision and urbanisation of rural sections (e.g. Norwood, Mitcham, etc).

Light's use of the word 'park' can have had nothing whatsoever to do with grazing animals nor military use - he had no powers and no instructions to layout land for any military functions neither for 'wagons' nor 'guns', and the council initially had no power to allow grazing on the Park Lands.
In any event, the explicit and clearly stated purpose of the Park Lands was health and recreation of the citizens of the City of Adelaide as "Public Walks" - passive recreation such as picnics, etc.